Financial reporting

The Financial Accounting Foundation intends to conduct post-implementation reviews of several business and government accounting standards pertaining to business combinations, reportable operating segments, deposits, investments, and repurchase agreements, to see how well they have worked in practice.

Members of the Financial Accounting Standards Board held a two-day meeting this week with officials from the Accounting Standards Board of Japan how they could better align accounting rules.

IMGCAP(1)]Check out the digital edition of the February 2012 issue of Accounting Today.

Firm News - February 10

The National Association of State Boards of Accountancy is awarding $25,000 in grants to academicians and post-doctoral researchers to research educational issues that affect CPAs, the public accounting professions and the responsibility of state accounting boards to protect the public.

Professional accountants need to respond to increasing demand from investors for non-financial information, specifically environmental, social and governance disclosures, according to a new report.

Firm News - Feb. 3

Financial Accounting Standards Board chair Leslie Seidman provides an update on the progress FASB is making on converging U.S. GAAP with IFRS and the SEC's delayed decision on incorporating IFRS in the U.S. financial reporting system in an interview with Accounting Today editor-in-chief Bill Carlino.

We're drafting this column in January, when many were surely puzzling over Securities and Exchange Commission Chief Accountant Jim Kroeker's December announcement that the commission would not, after all, decide by year end whether the International Accounting Standards Board and International Financial Reporting Standards would replace the Financial Accounting Standards Board and U.S. GAAP.

The column you regularly publish by Profs. Miller and Bahnson has finally reached the point where it can no longer be ignored. While I cannot be labeled a regular reader, I do gaze at it just to see who or what they have decided to flagellate.

A SLOW START

The American Institute of CPAs and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants formally launched their Chartered Global Management Accountant designation on Tuesday with a joint event in New York and London.

Baker Tilly International said Friday that revenues of its global accounting firm network grew 5 percent to $3.2 billion for the year ending June 30, 2011.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board said Friday they would work together on seeking to reduce the differences in their classification and measurement models for financial instruments.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has proposed an updated standard on impairment testing of intangible assets with indefinite lives, such as trademarks, licenses and distribution lives.

The National Association of State Boards of Accountancy and the American Institute of CPAs have both given their final approval to a revised set of standards for providers of continuing professional education programs for accountants.

International Accounting Standards Board chairman Hans Hoogervorst told attendees at an accounting conference in Moscow on Monday that he believes the U.S. will ultimately decide to support International Financial Reporting Standards.

The American Institute of CPAs has begun offering a revenue-sharing arrangement to state CPA societies if they help market the new Chartered Global Management Accountant designation to their members.

European Commission plans to bring the European Union into line with the possibly less stringent Sarbanes-Oxley measures to ban audit firms from offering tax and other non-audit services to audit clients are facing controversy as the issue moves to the European Parliament.